Just a quick video from ALA. Here’s some of what I did on Monday… enjoy!
January 2009
Check out Generations Online in 2009, the newest Pew Internet report. Go read it – there’s alot of good stuff in it.
Here are some tidbits that I found interesting:
“Contrary to the image of Generation Y as the “Net Generation,” internet users in their 20s do not dominate every aspect of online life. Generation X is the most likely group to bank, shop, and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online. And even Silent Generation internet users are competitive when it comes to email…”
Wow. Interesting tidbit from page 2: “The biggest increase in internet use since 2005 can be seen in the 70-75 year-old age group. While just over one-fourth (26%) of 70-75 year olds were online in 2005, 45% of that age group is currently online.” – Did you see that? What a HUGE jump – now, almost HALF of 70-75 year olds are online. Amazing.
“… email remains the most popular online activity, particularly among older internet users. Fully 74% of internet users age 64 and older send and receive email, making email the most popular online activity for this age group.” (see my post about email reference and think about how you can update that service).
How’s your health info online (and at your reference desk)? – “In particular, older internet users are significantly more likely than younger generations to look online for health information.”
And etc… good stuff (9 pages worth).
Just a quick post to show this – did you know you can get ustream.tv, a live video service, on your iPhone? I loaded the app onto my iPhone, then remembered that I had a ustream account… so I did what tends to come naturally to me… I played and experimented a bit!
So the above video is of me doing a live video stream from my laptop, and showing the live video stream on my iPhone.
Anyone using live video stream services like uStream.tv or justin.tv in their library? If so – what are you doing with it? Let us know!
Just a small update to my post Ask-a-Librarian Services Need a Reboot. There’s been an interesting discussion taking place in the comments to that post, ranging everywhere from telling me I’m “out of touch,” to lots of really cool discussions, to this – one library that I pulled some quotes from actually improved the wording on their Ask a Librarian email page.
I quoted specific wording from 8 public libraries (again, not trying to pick on them – there are many similarly-worded services out there). One of them was the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
One of the commenters, Richard, who indicated he works at “one of the offending libraries” made some very good points (as have others – thanks to everyone who contributed so far!). Today, he posted a comment saying “At least no one can say we’re recalcitrant blockheads. Semantics noted and changed” and provided a link back to Carnegie’s Ask A Librarian page. Go take a look. They have updated (and in my opinion, greatly improved) the wording.
What originally said “Every reasonable attempt will be made by library staff to respond to reference questions within 48 hours … E-mail Reference Questions should be limited to those that have concise, factual answers … Individuals are limited to three Electronic Mail Reference Questions each week” now reads much more digital-native friendly. Some snippets:
- If you prefer using e-mail to communicate with us, we’ll be happy to respond to your requests
- questions are usually answered in the order they’re received
All the stuff about a potential 48 hour turn-around-time, limiting the types of questions, and especially the limit of 3 questions a week is gone.
And – if you want to get a bit more of the back story on this change, check out this post from the Library Alchemy blog (great blog, by the way).
So – cudos to Pittsburgh!
